“Mike Lee still strikes me as “good and decent”, at least vis a vis the rest of the Senate.”
Unfortunately, he appears to be the exception to the rule today. I lived in Salt Lake City during WWII with my mother, and my father’s relatives while he was in Australia for 4 years with the Navy. In my childhood, the Mormon Church leadership backed people like Richard Nixon openly, and Utah has been reliably Republican forever. Salt Lake City less so, because it has a larger non-Mormon residency. My wife grew up in Las Vegas, where it was said that “It was run by the Mormons and owned by the Jews.” She has ample evidence that the Mormon Church paid for Harry Reid’s legal education ( coupled with money from Nevada brothels). The problem Mormon’s have is that their church wants open borders so they can bring their converts here from Mexico. The Mormon Church is the second largest church in that country, behind the Catholics.